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nil-:  n i:ro  series 


KING 
CROMWELL 


BY 


WILLIAM  A.  QUAYLE 

Author  ot  "A  Heko  and  Some 
Other   Folk,"  Etc. 


CINCINNATI:    JENNINGS  .\:    PVE 
NEW   YORK:    EATON   &    MAINS 


f'/.ry. 


COPYRIGHT,  ig02,   BY 
JENNINGS    &    PYE 


King  Cromwell 

Fellowship  with  great  ideas  amplifies  the 
soul.  The  study  of  a  sunset  or  a  mountain  or 
the  sea  exalts  him  who  studies.  Great  ideas 
are  the  heritage  of  the  human  mind.  But  a 
man  is  always  greater  than  any  material  thing. 
The  spiritual  always  dwarfs  the  physical.  The 
mountain,  lifting  forehead  to  ihc  heavens,  is 
less  a  giant  than  the  man  who  stands  at  its 
far  base  and  computes  its  altitude.  The  loco- 
motive, with  its  ponderous  complexity,  is  sim- 
plicity and  commonplaceness  as  compared 
with  Stephenson,  who  created  the  iron  mon- 
ster and  governs  its  goings.  The  ocean,  that 
home  of  slumbering  storms  and  wrathful  tem- 
pests, that  symbol  of  infinity  and  omnipo- 
tence,— the  ocean  is  not  so  great  as  the  dreamy 
man  who  stands  upon  its  shore  and  meditates 
its  mastery.  Columbus  is  greater  than  the 
great  Atlantic. 

A  man  is  an  aggregation  of  ideas.  He 
embodies  some  movement;  is  the  amplifica- 
tion of  some  concept.  He  is,  therefore,  of 
supreme  importance  to  the  world.     He  is,  by 


4  King  Cromwell 

virtue  of  his  greatness,  passed  into  the  circu- 
lating medium  of  the  intellectual  realm,  and 
is  not  to  be  underrated.  To  study  him  is  not 
servility  nor  hero  worship,  but  is  wisdom  and 
honest  dealing  with  one's  own  life.  Show  me 
greatness,  and  you  have  made  me  your  debtor. 
To  be  associated  with  the  colossal  elevates  the 
spirit.  This  is  a  common  fact  of  intellectual 
history.  Every  man  who  has  lifted  himself 
from  the  low  levels,  where  he  found  his  life 
groveling,  knows  that  except  he  had  touched 
the  hem  of  greatness'  garment,  he  had  never 
arisen  even  to  his  little  height. 

Cromwell  was  a  great  soul.  Near  him  I 
feel  as  if  I  stood  within  the  shadow  of  a  pyra- 
mid. The  day  is  gone  W'hen  men  wrangled 
over  his  greatness.  If  any  man  call  the  roll  of 
imperial  genius,  be  sure  the  name  of  Oliver 
Cromwell  will  be  there.  His  burly  figure 
stalks  across  every  stage  where  genius  doth 
appear.  There  are  some  men  who  are  locally 
great.  Their  genius  is  provincial.  They  be- 
long to  vicinities.  Close  at  hand  they  seem 
men  of  mighty  stature;  far  removed  they  ap- 
pear as  pigmies  on  the  plain.  To  this  class 
most  men  of  note  belong.  They  have  their 
day.    They  serve  their  generation.    Their  serv- 


King  Cromwell  5 

ice  to  the  world  is  not  to  be  underrated.  With- 
out them  history  would  indeed  suffer  loss. 
And  yet  their  speech  is  not  a  world  speech, 
nor  are  they  work!  figures. 

There  are  other  men  who  have  no  marks  of 
provincialism,  cither  in  speech  or  look.  They 
have  hung  their  blazing  orbs  so  high  as  to 
have  become  the  luminaries  of  the  world. 
Their  glory  is  so  illustrious  that  all  men  count 
them  stars  of  the  first  magnitude.  They  have 
"become  a  name."  The  earth  esteems  their 
fame  a  precious  heritage.  To  this  decimated 
list  the  name  of  Cromwell  belongs.  However 
much  men  differ  in  their  estimates  of  his  char- 
acter, there  is  practically  no  differing  on  the 
question  of  his  genius.  There  is  a  unanimity 
of  sentiment  here,  which  must  strike  every 
reader  of  biography  and  history  with  delighted 
surprise. 

Cdadstone  ranks  Cromwell  with  Charle- 
magne and  Napoleon.  Clarendon  recognizes 
him  as  no  common  man.  Nicholson  says:  "He 
was  a  man  for  all  ages  to  admire,  for  all  Brit- 
ons to  honor  in  proud  remembrance;"  and 
adds:  "No  royal  name,  at  least  since  Alfred's, 
is  more  worthv  of  our  veneration  than  that  of 
the    usurper,    Oliver    Cromwell."      Thurloe, 


6  King  Cromwell 

Cromwell's  Secretary  of  State,  himself  no 
mean  figure,  declares,  "A  greater  soul  never 
dwelt  among  men.'  Goldwin  Smith  says,  "A 
greater  proof  of  practical  capacity  was  never 
given."  Macaulay  calls  him  "the  most  pro- 
found politician  of  his  age,"  and  says:  "Such 
was  his  genius  and  resolution  that  he  was  able 
to  overpow-er  and  crush  everything  that 
crossed  his  path,  and  to  make  himself  more 
absolute  master  of  his  country  than  any  of  her 
legitimate  kings  had  been."  Cardinal  Mazarin 
gave  his  grudging  but  incontestable  testimony 
to  the  Protector's  greatness,  in  that  he  "feared 
Cromwell  more  than  he  feared  the  devil,  and 
changed  color  af  the  mention  of  his  name." 
The  above  remark  will  have  the  more  signifi- 
cance if  it  be  remembered  that  the  cardinal 
had  a  lively  belief  in  a  personal  devil;  and  his 
life  was  such  that  it  can  not  be  doubted  he  had 
a  wholesome  fear  of  him.  Guizot,  who  can 
not  be  classed  among  Cromwell's  panegyrists, 
pays  this  tribute  to  him:  "He  is,  perhaps,  the 
only  example  w^hich  history  afYords  of  one  man 
having  governed  the  most  opposite  events,  and 
proved  sufficient  for  the  most  various  des- 
tinies." This  list  of  testimonials  to  the  great- 
ness of  the  man  Cromwell  may  well  close  with 


King  Cromwell  7 

the  phrase  of  Carlyle.  To  him,  among  his 
heroes,  he  is  "Great  Cromwell."  And,  indeed, 
there  is  no  assignable  reason  why  this  man 
should  not  be  placed  in  the  list  with  a  Great 
Frederick  and  a  Great  Charles.  By  right  of 
his  genius,  he  may  well  be  named  Cromwell 
the  Great. 

If  I  am  told  that  the  man  about  to  come 
upon  the  stage  is  one  who  founded  empires, 
wore  a  crown  of  more  than  royal  splendor, 
won  plaudits  from  unwilling  lips — and  if  such 
a  man  come,  can  it  be  otherwise  than  that  I 
shall  view  him  with  attentive  vision,  even  with 
my  soul  in  my  eyes  I  Behold,  Cromwell  is 
here! 

He  is  five  feet  ten  inches  high.  He  is  broad, 
burly,  and  half-clad  in  mail.  A  huge  head, 
"fit  to  be  the  workshop  of  vast  matters,"  is 
planted  on  his  shoulders.  He  is  fiery,  fierce, 
brave  as  Achilles,  yet  tender  as  a  woman.  His 
is  an  English  face.  No  perfumed  Adonis  he; 
no  fine-cut  Greek  features — a  Briton  all  and 
all.  Xo  man  can  well  mistake  this  man's  na- 
tionality. He  looks  of  the  race  which  pro- 
duced him;  eyes  that  look  into  things  and  be- 
yond them;  silent,  melancholic,  fitted  for  a 
soldier  in  a  world's  battle.    He  seemed  a  tower 


8  King  Cromwell 

which  it  were  folly  to  attempt  to  storm ;  a  bolt 
shot  from  a  thunder-cloud,  impossible  to  re- 
sist; a  sphinx  riddle,  no  man  could  solve;  a 
secret  that  must  die  untold;  a  man  you  would 
turn  to  look  upon  when  you  pass,  not  know- 
ing why  you  looked.  The  Puritan  soldier  and 
prince  has  come.     Look! 

Cromwell  was  born  in  1599.  As  Carlyle 
has  finely  said,  he  was  "always  a  year  older 
than  his  century."  Four  years  later,  Elizabeth 
died,  and  the  Tudors  were  but  a  name  in  his- 
tory. He  was  born  during-  a  lull  in  national 
afifairs,  which  was  the  calm  before  the  fury- 
burst  of  the  tempest.  His  life  began  on  the 
verge  of  such  a  precipice  that  "the  murmuring 
surge  that  on  the  unnumbered  idle  pebbles 
chafes,  could  not  be  heard  so  high" — a  sheer 
leap  down  into  a  seething  sea  of  war,  of  an- 
archy, of  blood.  His  life  was  an  arch  which 
spans  the  chasm  between  two  dynasties.  His- 
tory has  shown  that  he  lived  in  a  crisis,  and 
was  a  man  born  for  crucial  moments  in  the 
chemistry  of  nations.  Some  men  are  fitted 
for  epoch  making — sinewy  to  withstand  the 
fury  of  tremendous  onset.  Athanasius,  Savon- 
arola, Luther,  Cromwell,  Pym,  Lincoln — these 


Kin^  C  rum  well  9 

men  seem  molded  in  eolossal  matrices  tor  un- 
usual service  and  superior  destinies. 

Cromwell  was  well  born;  not  greatly  born. 
Here  is  a  wise  distinction  nature  makes,  and 
men  might  well  mark.  He  was  not  plebeian, 
was  not  prince.  The  blood  of  Scotch  royalty 
flowed  through  his  veins,  and  the  strength  of 
English  yeomanry  was  latent  in  his  arm. 
Tlirough  and  through,  he  was  a  representative 
of  the  land  of  his  nativity.  He  was  of  the  mid- 
dle rank,  vrhich  has  made  England  what  Eng- 
land is.  He  was  a  farmer,  a  cattle-breeder,  a 
soldier  cast  in  nobler  than  Roman  mold.  He 
was  a  man  of  college  training,  by  forecast  a 
lawyer:  by  providence  and  fealty  to  duty,  a 
farmer,  a  general,  a  statesman,  a  king. 

Every  man's  genius  is  colored  by  his  age. 
His  environment  does  not  control,  but  does 
put  its  stamp  upon  his  destiny.  The  image  and 
superscription  of  genius  is  imprinted  by  the 
age  which  produces  the  man.  Eew  men  are  to 
be  understood  apart  from  their  times.  We  must 
study  the  topography  of  genius,  if  we  would 
comprehend  the  achievements  of  generals  and 
the  utterances  of  kings.  If  you  will  rehearse 
to  me  the  story  of  Prometheus,  tell  me  not 


lO  King  Cromwell 

only  his  name  and  fame,  but  that  a  black, 
scarred  crag  of  the  Caucasus  held  him,  that 
the  vultures  gnawed  at  his  vitals,  that  light- 
nings hurled  their  gleaming  spears  about  his 
head,  and  thunders  made  his  lonely  citadel  of 
pain  to  rock  like  fisher's  bark  on  tempest- 
drenched  seas.  These  things,  the  dire  acces- 
sories of  woe,  are  necessities  for  the  compre- 
hension of  the  Titan  tale.  So  of  Moses,  I 
must  know  not  only  who,  but  where:  Egypt, 
born  of  a  slave,  adopted  by  a  queen,  learned 
in  all  the  knowledge  of  that  wisest  land,  a 
king's  heir,  self-exiled  from  the  throne,  lone 
Midian  with  its  wandering  flock,  the  sea  passed 
through  dry-shod,  the  desert,  Sinai,  the  law, 
Pisgah,  Nebo — all  these  things  must  be  told 
ere  I  can  comprehend  the  life  of  the  chiefest 
legislator  of  the  world. 

So  must  I  understand  the  times  in  which 
this  man  Cromwell  wrought  if  I  would  com- 
prehend his  achievements.  Born  in  Eliza- 
beth's reign!  What  a  heyday  of  glory!  What 
glamour  clings  about  those  days!  Chivalry, 
romance,  Raleigh,  Leicester,  din  of  arms, 
shout  of  victory,  crash  of  Armadas,  and 
through  all  haughty-faced,  golden-haired  Eliz- 
abeth,  standing   an   omnipresent  personality! 


King  Cromwell  ii 

How  these  incongruities  become  congruous 
when  seen  in  those  historic  times!  But  we 
must  look  into  these  things  more  narrowly. 
Students  of  history  must  look  through  appear- 
ances into  realities.  Elizabeth's  age  was  an 
age  of  incomplete  reformation,  of  decaying 
chivalry,  of  commerce  and  colonization,  of 
surprising  energy  and  action,  which  produced 
the  drama.  These  points  summarize  the  dis- 
tinctive features  of  the  Elizabethan  era.  Look 
at  them  briefly. 

The  Reformation  had  no  stronger  or  more 
virulent  opposer  than  Henry  VIII.  He  loved 
a  woman  not  his  wife,  and  wished  to  divorce 
his  queen.  Rome  would  not  grant  the  king's 
desire,  whereupon  Henry  denied  Papal  su- 
premacy. He  married  Annie  Boleyn,  and 
introduced  the  Reformation;  but  such  a  dis- 
torted semblance  as  to  be  scarcely  recogniz- 
able. The  Reformation  came  to  England  to 
gratify  the  lust  of  a  lecherous  king.  The  new 
Church  differed  from  the  old  in  one  regard. 
In  the  old,  the  Pope  was  supreme;  in  the  new, 
the  king  was  supreme.  King  and  Pope  were 
combined  in  a  single  person.  Here  was  the 
union  of  Church  and  State.  It  must  be  ap- 
parent that  a  change  made  for  such  reasons 


12  King  Cromwell 

and  continued  under  such  forms,  must  be  a 
thing  from  which  pure  men  would  revolt. 
Elizabeth  sustained  the  same  relation  to  the 
Church  as  had  her  father.  With  her  the 
Church  was  a  subordinate  department  of  State. 
She  was  Protestant  by  circumstances.  Her 
conscience  was  no  active  member  of  the  Royal 
Council.  She  was  head  of  the  Protestant 
powers  of  Europe  more  as  a  matter  of  policy 
than  religion.  Indeed,  to  speak  with  even 
reasonable  accuracy,  she  was  such  solely  for 
politic  reasons.  It  was,  let  us  say  sadly  but 
with  all  certainty,  an  era  of  incomplete  Refor- 
mation. 

It  was  also  an  age  of  decaying  chivalry. 
The  day  of  chivalry  was  growing  late.  The 
purity  of  knighthood  was  largely  a  departed 
glory.  Instead  of  the  nobility  of  sincerity, 
which  made  beautiful  the  face  and  fame  ol 
King  Arthur,  there  was  the  laugh  oi  insincer- 
ity and  the  hollowness  of  hypocrisy.  Chivalry 
was  a  dying  splendor.  The  Sidneys  and 
Raleighs  were  a  hopeless  minority.  The  im- 
purity that  blights  was  rife.  The  court  of 
Elizabeth  was  not  the  home  of  a  Christian 
queen.  The  captivating  beauty  of  Spenser's 
"Fairie  Queen"   finds   no   counterpart  in  the 


King  Cromwell  13 

chivalry  of  Elizabeth's  reij:^n.  "False  Duessa" 
of  Spenser's  talc  niiq-ht  well  stand  as  the  sad 
symbol  of  Elizabethan  chivalry.  Elizabeth 
fostered  hypocrisy.  She  watered  with  her 
woman's  hand  that  upas  tree.  She  smiled  on 
knighthood  kneeling  at  her  throne,  with  lies 
as  black  as  treason  on  the  knight's  lips.  Chiv- 
alry, with  its  storied  purity,  was  not.  The 
Crusader,  whose  heart  w^as  full  of  nobility,  and 
whose  hand  was  full  of  deeds  of  high  emprise, 
was  dead.  He  slumbered  in  his  grave;  and 
with  him  slept  the  sacred  dust  of  Christian 
chivalry. 

This  was  an  age  of  discovery  and  coloniza- 
tion. The  English  were  beginning  to  guess 
the  secret  of  their  insular  position.  The  sea 
was  beckoning  them  to  sail  beyond  the  sun- 
set. The  fire  that  burned  within  the  life  of  the 
Renaissance  burned  here.  ^Men  urged  their 
way  along  the  }-easting  seas;  they  longed  to 
sight  new  worlds.  A  Columbus  heart  throbbed 
in  many  a  discoverer's  breast.  They  sought 
new  lands;  and  new  lands  found  must  be  peo- 
pled. Commerce  must  build  her  metropolis  of 
trade.  Sailors,  soldiers,  settlers,  must  go  tc^ 
gether.  These  were  contemporaries  in  the  new 
land.   Boldness  characterized  the  adventurer  in 


14  King  Cromwell 

Elizabeth's  reign.  She  herself  was  as  brave  as 
Boadicca.  Cowardice  is  not  one  of  Elizabeth's 
sins,  nor  is  it  a  sin  of  her  age.  There  were 
bold  men  in  those  days,  and  they  sailed  to  the 
world's  limit,  and  essayed  to  seize  new  hemi- 
spheres for  England's  supremacy. 

It  was  the  age  of  the  drama.  Those  were 
days  of  action.  Tremendous  and  almost  re- 
sistless energy  was  here.  The  blood  ran  like 
lightning  along  men's  veins.  Magnificent  en- 
ergies were  driving  along  like  a  whirlwind.  It 
was  an  actor's  age.  The  drama  grew  out  of 
the  nature  of  things.  That  species  of  poetry 
grew  in  Greece  when  Athens  was  as  sleepless 
as  the  ocean.  It  is  the  exponent  of  superla- 
tive energy.  In  such  an  atmosphere  the  drama 
grows  to  its  full  height.  In  Elizabeth's  reign 
the  drama  "rose  like  an  exhalation."  In  a 
brief  period  it  grew  to  such  noble  propor- 
tions that  it  might  well  lay  claim  to  have 
wrested  the  scepter  from  the  hand  of  Attica. 
Elizabeth's  age  shows  the  drama  at  its  best; 
since  then  it  has  declined,  a  setting  star. 

In  an  age  marked  with  such  peculiarities, 
Cromwell  was  born.  Elizabeth's  was  essentially 
a  feudal  reign.  The  Tudors  were  a  feudal  house. 
Elizabeth  was  a  feudal  sovereign.    She,  hating 


King  Cromwell  15 

death,  died.  Death  tore  the  scepter  from  her 
hand,  tlie  purple  from  her  shoulders,  the  crown 
from  her  head;  he  took  her  from  her  throne, 
and  hewed  her  out  a  tomb.  The  Tudors  were 
dead;  the  Stuarts  were  come.  Strength  was  no 
more.  Weakness  clung  with  timid  fingers  to 
the  royal  prerogatives.  In  1603,  Elizabeth  lay 
dying;  in  1649,  Charles  Stuart's  head  dropped 
on  the  scaffold  at  Whitehall — in  1603,  a  whole 
people  delirious  with  loyalty;  in  1649,  all  Eng- 
land sullen  with  wrath  that  slew  their  king. 
Truly,  "the  old  order  changes,  giving  place 
to  new."  But  the  change  in  appearance  was 
only  indicative  of  the  change  the  people  had 
undergone.  It  was  a  tide  telling  how  high  the 
sea  had  risen.  We  may  well  challenge  history 
to  show  so  radical  a  change  in  so  brief  a 
period.  It  was  the  sailing  into  a  new,  untried 
sea.  It  was  the  passing  into  a  new  hemi- 
sphere lit  with  new  stars;  into  a  realm  un- 
known, vast,  curtained  with  mystery.  It  was  a 
change  so  entire,  so  unparalleled,  that  no  pre- 
cedent could  be  adduced.  It  was  sailing  when 
chart  and  compass  and  stars  are  gone. 

This  was  not  the  England  of  Elizabeth,  but 
a  new  and  untried  thing.  Ilers  was  the  Eng- 
land of  the  cavalier  and  the  Churchman.    This 


i6  King  Cromwell 

was  the  England  of  the  commoner  and  the 
Puritan.  It  resembled  the  old  order  only  in 
its  possession  of  tremendous  and  resistless  en- 
ergy. The  river  still  plunged  like  a  moun- 
tain torrent  toward  the  sea;  but  the  channels 
were  changed.  Puritanism  was  here.  It  came 
like  an  apparition.  It  stalked  upon  the  stage 
of  human  affairs,  and  men  knew  not  whence 
it  came,  nor  whither  it  hastened.  It  was  a 
strange  thing;  it  was  a  great  thing.  What, 
then,  is  Puritanism?  This  question  needs 
candid  answer.  Alore,  it  demands  it.  Puri- 
tanism is  not  an  incomprehensible  thing,  but 
is  in  the  main  an  uncomprehended  thing.  Men 
laugh  at  it,  make  their  common  jests  at  its 
expense.  I  had  as  lief  laugh  at  Niagara  or 
the  Matterhorn.  Stupendousness  is  not  a  fit 
subject  for  jest,  nor  sublimity  a  theme  fitting 
the  humorist's  powers;  yet  the  greater  part  of 
men's  knowledge  of  Puritanism  is  that  which 
appertains  to  its  vagaries.  It  had  idiosyn- 
crasies; all  greatness  has.  It  was  not  perfect, 
but  was  such  a  thing  as  towered  immeasurably 
above  all  religious  contemporaries.  In  our 
day,  looking  back  across  that  seventeenth  cen- 
tury plain  crowded  with  armies,  misted  with 
battle-smoke,  tumultuous  with  battle's  din — 


King  Cromwell  17 

looking"  back  we  behold  Puritanism  a  peak 
lifting  itself  so  high  into  the  azure  that,  when 
all  else  is  hid,  it  stands  sublime,  a  beacon  to 
the  world.  Puritanism  was  no  tangle  of  incon- 
gruities, no  maze  of  absurdities.  It  was  wise 
above  its  day.  It  was  a  revolt  against  false- 
ness, hollowness,  hypocrisy.  It  was  an  exodus 
of  men  from  an  Egypt  of  falsehood  and  insin- 
cerity into  a  Canaan  of  truth.  It  was  the 
coming  to  the  side  of  truth;  the  taking  stand 
within  the  ranks  of  God. 

As  has  been  shown,  the  Anglican  Church 
was  half  Romanism  and  more.  It  lacked  those 
elements  which  should  characterize  an  ecclesi- 
asticism.  From  such  a  thing  the  Puritans  de- 
parted; and  never  had  a  religious  exodus  more 
justification.  Puritanism  was  an  incarnation 
of  Christian  conscience.  That  is  saying  much, 
but  is  speaking  noble  truth.  True,  it  was  not 
the  genial  and  beautiful  thing  Christ's  man- 
hood was.  They  patterned  rather  after  Aloses 
and  Elijah  than  after  Christ.  But  better  Moses 
than  Pharaoh,  better  Elijah  than  Ahab.  Those 
who  can  scarcely  marshal  words  meet  for  the 
task  of  condemning  the  Puritan  severity  of 
morals  and  life,  find  no  difificulty  in  passing 

the  orgies  of  a  brothel  court  of  the  second 

2 


i8  King  Cromwell 

Charles  with  a  feeble  and  smiling  condemna- 
tion that  amounts  to  a  magnificat  of  sin.  It 
were  well  to  preserve  at  least  a  semblance  of 
fairness  in  discussing  important  matters.  So 
Puritanism  came.  It  asked  no  man's  leave. 
It  stood  a  stern,  strong,  heroic  thing.  It 
championed  the  cause  of  purity  and  devotion 
to  God.  It  believed  in  the  brotherhood  and 
common  equality  of  man.  It  believed  in  one 
God  and  one  Book.  No  better  and  no  nobler 
tribute  can  be  paid  that  band  of  Christian  men 
and  women  whom  history  names  Puritans  than 
to  say,  as  has  been  said,  "They  were  men  of 
one  Book."  The  Bible  was  their  vade  meciim. 
These  men  possessed  a  devotion  to  duty,  as 
they  apprehended  it,  which  was  as  beautiful 
as  a  mother's  self-sacrifice;  stern  and  pitiless 
as  the  winter's  storm  toward  Romanism  and 
sin  in  any  guise,  but  tender  towards  wife, 
mother,  babe,  as  any  heart  that  ever  beat. 
They  were  knights  in  a  new  and  illustrious 
chivalry.  They  made  battle  for  purity  of 
thought,  lips,  and  life.  My  heart,  as  it  be- 
holds the  Puritan,  cries,  "Hail,  all  hail!" 

This  change  was  great  past  all  belief.  Pray, 
you,  what  caused  it?  But  one  answer  is  pos- 
sible,— the  Bible.     The  Bible  is  a  revolution- 


King  Cromwell  19 

izer.  That  was  the  Book.  Puritanism  pored 
over  it  as  schoolboys  con  their  lessons  wiih 
bent  heads.  They  were  saturated  with  the 
Bible  thought  and  Bible  phrase.  Their 
thought  framed  itself  to  speech  in  the  Bible 
sentences.  On  Dunbar's  field,  when  mists  be- 
gan to  lift  and  the  battle  came,  Puritan  Crom- 
well cried,  "Let  God  arise,  and  let  his  enemies 
be  scattered."  His  was  the  Puritan  speech. 
His  life  was  molded  by  God's  Book.  With  it 
all  Puritans  held  constant  companionship. 
The  Bible  is  a  renovator.  Let  the  Bible  enter 
any  man's  thought,  and  it  will  ennoble.  Stand 
a  man  face  to  face  with  the  Bible  concepts,  and 
he  will  begin  to  pant  for  room.  It  fiings  vast- 
ness  into  his  soul.  The  Bible  begets  a  new 
life.  Puritanism  w'as  new.  Men  thought  these 
men  monstrosities;  but  they  were  noble  nor- 
malities. There  were  in  them  greatness,  wis- 
dom, goodness.  Looking  at  them,  we  say, 
scarcely  thinking  what  we  utter,  '"There  were 
giants  in  those  days." 

Cromwell  was  a  Puritan.  He  was  perme- 
ated with  the  decrees.  His  was  a  bilious  tem- 
perament. He  was  moody,  silent,  brooding, 
melancholy.  All  great  souls  have  melancholy 
hours,    and    know    the    ministry    of    silence. 


20  King  Cromwell 

Moses  prepared  for  God's  work  in  the  soli- 
tudes of  Horeb;  and  every  Moses  must  be  girt 
for  his  great  battles  by  the  ministration  of  sub- 
lime silences.  Cromwell,  in  his  fen  lands,  in 
his  silence,  mused  on  God's  Word,  was  con- 
verted, came  into  the  secret  of  the  Divine, 
merged  his  life  into  the  life  of  God,  and  came 
to  be  a  moody  soul  lit  with  resplendent  Bible 
lights.  Who  does  not  comprehend  this  will 
not  comprehend  Cromwell.  The  hieroglyph- 
ics of  this  man's  life  are  not  decipherable  if  a 
man  holds  not  this  key.  He  embodied  Puri- 
tanism. To  know  Milton  and  Cromwell  is  to 
know  Puritanism.  They  are  the  high  tides  of 
that  illustrious  era.  Cromwell  had  seen  false 
chivalry  die;  had  seen  the  true  chivalry  spring 
into  majestic  life;  had  seen  the  Puritan  day 
grow  crimson  with  the  dawn.  He  dwelt  under 
Stuart  tyranny.  That  family  was  weak.  The 
Tudors,  whatever  their  faults — and  they  were 
many — were  strong.  Henry  VH  had  a  giant's 
arm.  He  was  of  kingly  stature  and  imperial 
mold.  Henry  VHI,  libertine  as  he  was,  had 
kingly  powers  and  talent  for  administration 
akin  to  genius.  Even  Mary,  with  her  hands 
dyed  in  martyr's  blood,  was  not  weak.  She 
had    virility    not    wholly    mastered    by    her 


King  Cromwell  21 

woman's  heart.  Her  successor  might  well  be 
named  King  Ehzabeth,  She  was  king,  not 
queen.  And  when  the  government  passed 
from  a  royal  Hne,  whose  powers  and  prowess 
were  manifest,  into  the  hands  of  drivehng  in- 
competency and  pedantic  weakness,  the  antith- 
esis was  so  starthng  as  to  waken  men  from 
their  quiescent  moods,  till  on  the  lips  of  even 
steadfast  loyalty  there  came  the  unpremedi- 
tated query,  "Why  should  this  weakness  reign 
over  us?" 

Men  will  forgive  much  if  there  be  strength. 
The  French  tolerated  a  Louis  XIV,  and  not 
a  Louis  XVI,  because  the  one  was  strong,  and 
the  other  weak.  They  tolerated  the  adminis- 
tration and  gloried  in  the  rule  of  a  Napoleon, 
and  dethroned  a  Charles  X,  because  Napo- 
leon, though  a  tyrant,  was  strong ;  and  Charles 
was  a  tyrant  and  weak.  The  Stuarts  were 
weak.  There  was  no  strength  among  them. 
Charles  II,  in  spite  of  his  monstrous  vices,  had 
more  of  the  symptoms  of  strength  than  James 
I,  Charles  I,  or  James  II.  James  I  was  a 
pedant,  an  overgrown  schoolboy,  "the  wisest 
fool  in  Christendom."  Charles  I  was  the  crea- 
ture of  favorites,  was  possessed  of  no  gift  of 
comprehending  the  people  whom  he  ruled,  was 


22  King  Cromwell 

an  egotist,  and  as  false  as  even  a  king  could 
well  be.  James  II  was  an  intolerant  bigot, 
blind  as  a  mole,  and  so  incapable  of  learning 
that  even  a  scaffold  dyed  with  his  father's 
blood  could  teach  him  no  wisdom.  Such  were 
the  Stuarts.  The  Tudors  had  been  tyrannical, 
but  were  not  pusillanimous  in  their  weak- 
ness. There  was  no  more  despotism  in  James 
I  than  Elizabeth,  nor  in  Charles  I  than  in 
Henry  VIII;  but  there  was  strength  in  the 
Tudors,  and  only  weakness  in  the  Stuarts. 
They  were  a  puerile  race.  Charles  had  all  the 
Tudor's  pride  and  self-assurance,  with  none 
of  the  Tudor's  astuteness  or  strength;  and  the 
result  is  what  any  attentive  reader  of  history 
might  forecast.  Men  rebelled.  The  Puritan 
revolution  grew  as  naturally  as  ever  did  the 
wind-flower  or  the  violet. 

Liberty  is  a  perennial  reappearance.  When 
man  thinks  it  dead,  it  but  "mews  its  mighty 
youth."  It  marches  forward  and  upward. 
The  contest  between  cavalier  and  Puritan  was 
liberty's  conflict.  The  battle  belonged,  not  to 
England,  but  to  the  world.  It  was  the  cause 
of  our  common  humanity.  And  Cromwell,  as 
the  leader  in  the  fray,  becomes  a  figure  in 
liberty's  lists,  and  a  character  of  consequence 


King  Cromwell  23 

in  the  history  of  men.  To  every  lover  of  hb- 
erty  the  name  of  OHver  Cromwell  must  have 
in  it  a  deep  and  solemn  music,  like  the  singing 
of  a  psalm.  Liberty's  battle  is  on.  The  King 
is  uppermost,  lie  is  victorious.  Capacity 
comes  to  the  front.  Cromwell  moves  into 
view.  He  was  no  seeker  of  place ;  place  sought 
him.  He  tarried  at  home,  and  did  the  work 
that  came  to  hand.  He  hated  oppression.  He 
loved  li]:»erty.  What  his  kinsman  Hampden 
did  in  the  matter  of  ship-money,  that  Crom- 
well did  in  the  matter  of  the  draining  of  the 
fens.  He  felt  himself  in  a  high  sense  a  sub- 
ject of  the  government  of  God.  He  held  him- 
self ready  to  move  obedient  to  the  Divine 
command.  AMiere  duty  called,  he  followed. 
Liberty  called  Cromwell:  he  did  not  call  him- 
self. The  exigencies  of  the  hour  pronounced 
his  name.  Capacity  makes  room  for  itself.  It 
is  always  so.  Gustavus  Adolphus  came  be- 
cause the  place  needed  him.  In  the  swirl  of 
battle  great  men  appear,  because  the  time  calls 
them.  \Mien  liberty  puts  clarion  trumpet  to 
her  lips,  and  sounds  her  note  of  wild  alarm, 
then  a  host  answers,  "Lo,  we  come."  War 
came  in  a  great  nation.  This  was  no  race  of 
warriors,  and  had  no  long  list  of  military  great- 


24  K.if^g  Cromwell 

"ness  from  which  to  call  leaders.  The  time 
came  when  the  nation's  life  hung  by  a  thread; 
when  freedom's  empire  was  well-nigh  lost; 
and  in  the  time  of  dire  extremity  help  came. 
Grant,  the  invincible,  with  unostentatious  bear- 
ing, comes  and  leads  a  million  men  to  victory. 
It  was  the  triumph  of  capacity.  Greatness 
needs  no  herald  before  its  face,  nor  asks  for 
place,  gift  of  another's  hand ;  but  does  its  duty, 
bides  its  time.  So  Cromwell  came;  illustrious 
day!  He  saw  what  others  did  not  see.  This 
battle  was  not  primarily  between  social  classes, 
but  between  conscience,  religion,  manhood  on 
the  one  hand,  and  no  conscience  and  hollow 
insincerity  on  the  other. 

"We  must  have  God-fearing  men,"  said 
Cromwell.  This  was  a  speech  genius  alone 
could  pronounce.  That  was  insight  into  the 
very  spirit  of  the  times.  He  knew  the  thing 
with  which  he  had  to  cope.  What  his  coadju- 
tors took  years  to  learn,  his  acumen  discovered 
at  the  first.  Others  led,  he  followed.  Others 
in  the  van,  he  in  the  rear.  He  was  not  trou- 
bled about  notice  or  praise.  "God  noticed 
him,"  says  Carlyle.  He  was  so  faithful  to  his 
God  and  the  cause  of  liberty  as  an  inferior,  as 
to  be  felt  the  superior  of  all. 


King  Cromwell  25 

Some  men  seem  great  by  lack  of  standard 
of  measurement.  Among  a  race  of  Lillipu- 
tians, a  Gulliver  becomes  a  giant.  In  inferior 
epochs,  a  man  may  tower  above  his  contem- 
poraries; not  because  he  is  so  great,  but  be- 
cause they  arc  so  insignificant.  It  is  possibly 
so  in  this  instance.  But  the  question  need  not 
delay  for  answer.  Look  at  his  contemporaries. 
Call  the  names  of  those  men  who  made  those 
times  memorable:  Elliot,  Pym,  Hampden,  i\Iil- 
ton,  Ireton,  Thurloe,  Blake, — this  is  a  roll  of 
greatness.  These  men  would  have  shone  in 
the  constellations  of  any  age.  Add  the  name 
of  StrafTord,  that  imperious  aristocrat,  the 
statesman  of  the  first  Stuart  reign,  and  we  shall 
find  that  Cromwell  lived  among  men  whom  the 
world  reckons  great.  How  then  came  this 
Cromwell  to  stand  among  them  so  vast?  If 
the  man  was  not  fit  figure  for  the  world's 
Pantheon,  there  is  no  explanation  for  the  fact. 
He  was  a  leader.  He  rose  from  the  level  where 
he  served  his  country,  to  where  he  was  the 
cynosure  of  every  eye  and  the  desire  of  Eng- 
land. He  hid  himself.  He  put  others  forward. 
He  asked  no  rank,  but  seemed  lost  in  the 
cause  of  freedom. 

It  is  observable  that  in  some  eras  great  men 


26  King  Cromwell 

multiply.  The  times  demand  greatness.  No 
progress  is  possible,  except  nature  do  bestir 
herself.  See  what  hosts  of  notable  generals 
the  French  Revolution  produced.  The  names 
of  men  of  superior  powers  in  the  American 
Revolutionary  period  are  legion.  It  was  the 
same  in  the  crisis  of  the  Rebellion.  It  is  in 
such  times,  as  if  to  meet  the  rush  of  the  tem- 
pest and  to  withstand  the  mad  charge  of  the 
sea,  one  gathered  the  latent,  unsuspected  en- 
ergies of  his  manhood,  and  dedicated  them 
every  one  to  the  task  of  standing  impregnable 
as  a  tower.  In  this  struggle  for  liberty,  when 
great  issues  hung  in  the  balance,  greatness 
multiplied.  Statesmen  unknown  arose,  and 
did  legislate  for  generations  that  were  yet  to 
be.  The  call,  the  answer,  were  blended  in  one 
voice.  Great  men  were  clustering  about  the 
standards  of  liberty;  and  the  most  command- 
ing figure  on  this  stormy  field  is  Oliver  Crom- 
well. He  is  not  to  be  accounted  great  because 
he  dwelt  among  a  pigmy  brood;  but  rather 
that,  among  a  coterie  of  men  whose  talent  was 
far  removed  from  mediocrity,  he,  Saul-like, 
towered  a  head  above  them  all.  Essex  must 
go  to  the  rear;  not  that  Cromwell  willed  or 
planned  it,  but  that  a  greater  than  he  had 


King  Cromwell  27 

come.  Cromwell  desired  Fairfax  to  have  com- 
mand of  the  war  against  the  Scots;  England 
had  other  desires.  She  knew  the  general  for 
the  conduct  of  this  war  was  not  Fairfax,  but 
Cromwell.  The  nation  had  come  to  know  its 
leader,  and  Dunbar  and  Worcester  justified 
England's  choice.  This  quiet,  unassuming 
man  now  stands  revealed, 

"The  pillar  of  a  people's  hope, 
The  center  of  a  world's  desire." 

He  "came,  saw,  conquered."  He  massed 
his  God-fearing,  praying  battalions,  and  flung 
them  on  his  enemies  like  an  avalanche.  God- 
fearing men  led  by  a  man  of  God  were  invin- 
cible. The  world  looked  and  wondered. 
Battle  witli  these  men  was  duty;  for  they 
fought  God's  battles.  Cromwell  suspected  he 
was  there  to  win. 

He  declared  he  would  slay  the  king,  should 
I  they  meet  in  hour  of  conflict.  He  knew  his 
era  as  no  other  knew  it.  He  conquered  the 
king,  the  Irish,  the  Scotch,  the  Parliament. 
He  merits  the  name  of  Cromwell  the  Con- 
queror. The  train  of  his  victories  is  like  a 
silver  highway  on  the  swelling  sea  when  the 
great  moon  is  full. 


28  King  Cromwell 

It  is  not  possible  in  a  brief  sketch  to  give 
an  adequate  estimate  of  genius  such  as  this 
man  possessed.  For  such  task  volumes  only 
can  suffice.  But  the  characteristics  of  the  man 
may  be  summed  up  best  under  a  dual  heading: 
First,  the  accusations  brought  against  him; 
second,  the  claims  made  for  him.  Under  the 
former  of  these  captions  three  indictments  may 
be  mentioned:  Fie  was  a  hypocrite;  he  was 
cruel;  he  betrayed  the  cause  of  liberty. 

These  are  grievous  charges.  They  do  not 
militate  against  his  genius;  but  they,  if  prov- 
able, will  blast  his  character  like  an  eternal 
mildew.  Note  each  accusation.  But  before 
that  task  be  attempted,  let  it  be  remarked  that 
his  contemporary  biographers  were  those 
whom  he  had  conquered  in  battle  or  mastered 
in  diplomacy.  They  wrote  with  pen  dipped 
in  gall.  Suppose  the  solitary  biographer  of 
the  Christ  had  been  Annas  or  Caiaphas,  Sad- 
ducee  or  Pharisee,  what  distorted  features  of 
the  Lord  would  we  behold!  It  is  but  too  ap- 
parent that,  as  seen  through  their  eyes,  he 
would  have  looked  the  embodiment  of  icono- 
clasm,  self-opinionation,  and  colossal  arro- 
gancy.  We  have  other,  truer,  and  therefore 
fairer  pictures.    They  who  loved  him  spoke  of 


King  Cromwell  29 

him  as  he  was.  They  who  hated  him  had  cari- 
catured him,  and  written  beneath  the  travesty, 
"This  fellow."  Cromwell's  life  was  not  writ- 
ten by  men  who  knew  and  loved  him,  but  by 
defeated  cavaliers,  by  jealous  inferiority, 
wrathful  because  of  the  man's  supremacy,  or 
by  lovers  of  liberty  who  were  dreamers,  and 
had  not  the  insight  to  discern  what  Cromwell 
perceived.  With  such  biographers,  who  can 
wonder  that  the  Cromwell  of  history  seems  a 
monster,  a  second  Nero,  whose  memory  is  fit 
only  for  obloquy?  This  word  of  warning  is 
absolutely  necessary  for  those  who  would 
know  the  Puritan  general  and  statesman 
aright. 

To  the  charge  of  hypocrisy  let  it  be  re- 
plied, while  his  enemies  are  a  unit  in  this 
accusation,  they  are  not  at  all  agreed  as  to  the 
particular  instances  in  which  his  omnipresent 
hypocrisy  was  displayed.  One  says  he  was 
profoundly  hypocritical  in  advocating  Fair- 
fax's leadership  in  the  war  against  the  Scots; 
while  Mrs.  Harrison  is  sure  that,  though  he 
was  a  monster  of  duplicity,  he  was  honest  here. 
Cromwell  was  not  a  hypocrite.  If  he  was  a 
hypocrite, then  was  a  towering  genius  exercised 
here  as  elsewhere.    Hypocrisy  is  acting  a  part. 


30  King  Cromwell 

wearing  a  mask.  Cromwell,  if  he  wore  a  mask, 
never  dropped  it.  Not  in  word  spoken  or  writ- 
ten, not  in  public,  nor  in  privacy  to  his  best 
beloved,  did  he  seem  other  than  we  know  him. 
We  are  told  his  religious  phrases  were  a  hypo- 
crite's cant;  but  if  any  man  can  candidly  read 
his  letters  and  speeches  and  so  believe,  I  mar- 
vel at  his  insight.  What  I  maintain  is  that,  if 
the  man  was  a  hypocrite,  he  was  the  most 
masterful  deceiver  history  portrays;  he  was 
genius  in  his  craft.  In  truth,  the  man  was  the 
soul  of  honest  intention.  He  was  a  believer  in 
God  and  the  Puritan  cause,  and  in  his  own 
mission.  He  thought  himself  called  of  God 
to  act  his  heroic  part.  He  was  a  believer  in 
Divine  decrees.  He  prayed,  agonized,  came 
from  his  hours  of  introspection,  imbued  with 
the  idea  of  God's  commission  for  a  given  task. 
Such  a  view  of  Cromwell  makes  his  life  ra- 
tional. We  can  thus  comprehend  it.  There  is 
logical  consecutiveness  in  his  character.  But 
on  any  other  theory  there  is  no  clue  whereby 
to  escape  the  labyrinth.  The  charge  of  hypoc- 
risy is  an  easy  method  of  explaining  an  ab- 
struse human  problem.  It  is  a  method  much 
in  vogue  for  explaining  what  otherwise  is 
inexplicable.      In   my    judgment   there   is    no 


King  Cromwell  31 

shred  of  proof  of  CromweH's  alleged  hypoc- 
risy. 

"Cromwell  was  cruel."  I  incline  to  the 
opinion  that  this  will  not  bear  the  light  of 
honest  investigation.  He  was  stern;  he  was 
a  Puritan.  That  character  was  modeled  after 
the  Old  Testament,  rather  than  the  New.  The 
severity  of  ]\Ioses  with  the  Amalckites  was  be- 
fore Cromwell's  eyes.  Those  heathen,  to  his 
thought,  were  not  more  assuredly  the  enemies 
of  God  than  the  men  against  whom  the  Puri- 
tan unsheathed  his  sword.  The  instance  al- 
ways adduced  as  proof  positive  of  this  charge 
is  the  massacre  of  Drogheda  and  Wexford. 
But  certain  facts  must  be  noted.  War  is  not 
among  the  amenities.  It  is  always  cruel.  But 
in  this  epoch,  war  was  clothed  with  horrors 
our  century  can  not  comprehend.  Tilly,  in 
the  Thirty  Years'  War,  had  been  guilty  of  the 
most  execrable  atrocities.  The  Catholics  in 
Ireland,  during  the  early  stages  of  the  Parlia- 
mentary struggle,  had  massacred  helpless  vic- 
tims with  such  savage  cruelty  that  England 
looked  upon  the  perpetrators  as  fiends  incar- 
nate. They  were  savage  belligerents,  whose 
proclivities  for  slaughter  were  so  well  knowF» 
that   it   seemed   essential   to   fling  an   abidiiig 


32  King  Cromwell 

terror  into  their  hearts.  This  was  the  end  in 
view  when  Drogheda  and  Wexford  were 
stormed,  and  their  population  slaughtered. 
The  end  was  gained.  The  hostile  Irish  were 
so  totally  subdued  by  the  severity  that  they 
were  guilty  of  no  further  outrage.  Crom- 
well's plan,  when  the  whole  scope  of  affairs  is 
considered,  was  without  question  the  kindliest 
which  could  have  been  devised.  This  man  by 
nature  was  not  cruel.  His  government  was 
not  one  of  fierce  acerbity.  His  was  a  gentle- 
ness, a  tenderness  of  treatment  to  the  con- 
quered cavalier,  which  presents  a  striking  con- 
trast to  the  treatment  accorded  even  the  dead 
by  re-enthroned  royalty.  Cromwell's  govern- 
mental policy,  viewed  as  a  whole,  is  in  no  sense 
open  to  the  charge  of  cruelty. 

But  "Cromwell  betrayed  the  cause  of  lib- 
erty." This,  if  true,  expunges  the  man's  name 
from  the  roll  of  patriotism.  A  traitor!  thing 
to  be  despised!  What  are  the  facts?  On  what 
grounds  do  the  charges  rest?  He  became 
Protector.  The  war  was  waged  for  liberty. 
Puritanism  meant  equality.  A  commonwealth 
shone  in  glory  before  their  eyes.  The  ideal 
government  was  now  to  be  inaugurated. 
Vane,  Harrison,  Haselrig,  dreamed  their  day- 


King  Cromwell  33 

dream  of  democracy.  They  shut  eyes  and  ears. 
They  were  oblivious  to  the  tumultuous  seas 
surging  about  them.  Cromwell  knew  his 
country  and  his  time.  He  held  his  .finger  on 
the  nation's  pulse.  He  both  heard  and  saw. 
He  comprehended  that  the  Long  Parliament, 
which  had  in  its  life  accomplished  an  epoch- 
making  work,  had  now  lived  too  long.  It  was 
becoming  senile.  The  Commonwealth  was 
speeding  to  destruction.  Anarchy  lay  but  a 
stone's  cast  ahead.  Clear-visioned  Cromwell 
comprehended  this.  Than  he,  no  stronger  be- 
liever in  human  equality  lived.  He  would 
have  England  rule  itself  without  the  inter- 
position of  army  or  general;  but  it  was  not 
capable  for  so  herculean  a  labor.  He  chose 
to  rule,  rather  than  see  the  thing  for  which  his 
army  and  himself  had  fought  fall  into  ruin. 
England  was  not  ready  for  self-govern- 
ment. It  was  not  yet  grown  to  man's  estate. 
More  than  a  century  must  pass  before  Puri- 
tanism would  grow  so  great.  Confessedly  a 
nation  must  have  assumed  the  toga  virilis  be- 
fore it  can  be  self-controlling.  Erance  was 
incapable  of  self-government  in  1789.  The 
list  of  victims  for  the  guillotine  had  not  been 
half  so  long  under  a  monarchy.  It  is  a  grave 
3 


34  K^irig  Cromwell 

question  whether  to  this  hour  the  French  peo- 
ple are  qualified  for  this  duty.  The  South 
American  republics  afford  a  melancholy  spec- 
tacle and  a  suggestive  lesson;  while  Mexico  is 
a  republic  only  in  name.  Cromwell  waited 
with  all  patience  till  he  saw  whither  England 
was  drifting.  He  knew  the  brave  craft  would 
break  to  splinters  on  the  rocks.  The  result 
subsequent  to  his  death  justified  his  views, 
and  vindicated  his  motive.  It  was  not  a  ques- 
tion of  Commonwealth  or  Cromwell;  it  was 
a  question  of  Cromwell  or  Charles  II.  Crom- 
well, the  great,  the  heroic,  the  true;  or  Charles, 
the  insignificant,  the  cowardly,  the  false — 
which  shall  rule?  Dare  any  man  halt  between 
these  extremes?  This  was  the  status  of  na- 
tional affairs  which  called  forth  the  resolution 
and  insight  of  the  Puritan  statesman.  His 
Protectorate,  so  far  from  being  a  betrayal  of 
liberty,  was  liberty's  preservation. 

Having  considered  the  negative  phases  of 
this  man's  character,  look  at  the  positive. 
Cromwell  must  be  studied  as  soldier,  orator, 
statesman,  and  man. 

And  it  is  as  a  soldier  the  world  knows  him 
best.  That  martial  figure  rivets  the  world's 
gaze.     He  was  the  soldier  pre-eminent  of  the 


King  Cromwell  35 

Revolutionary  period.  He  rose  to  be  general 
of  all  the  army  by  force  of  achievement  and  by 
right  of  qualification.  He  was  himself.  He 
alone  could  cope  with  fiery  Rupert.  He  alone 
could  organize  a  body  of  soldiery,  whose  fame 
should  be  as  lasting  as  the  world.  There  was 
in  him  the  genius  of  originality  and  organiza- 
tion. He  worked  silently  and  persistently;  and 
from  that  labor  comes  the  Ironsides,  a  body  of 
citizen-soldiers,  Christians,  buckling  on  the 
arms  of  temporal  warfare — an  organization 
where  rank  of  mind  was  superior  to  rank  of 
blood,  a  place  where  men  might  rise  by  cour- 
age and  capacity,  an  embryonic  military  re- 
public. This  was  the  new  model — praying  sol- 
dier! Unique  creation!  Antony,  Caesar,  Fred- 
erick the  Great,  were  not  more  original  in  the 
cast  of  their  military  genius  than  ho.  The 
formation  of  his  army  showed  his  discernment. 
An  army  once  created,  his  plan  of  battle  was 
to  drive  like  a  tornado  at  the  enemy's  center. 
He  was  no  Fabius.  The  peculiarity  of  the 
Puritan  character  w^as  visible  in  his  military 
tactics.  Massive"  directness,  that  was  all — that 
was  enough.  Napoleon  was  to  the  end  an  ar- 
tillery officer.  That  stamped  all  his  military 
operations.     Cromwell  was  to  the  end  a  cav- 


36  King  Cromwell 

airy  officer.  He  fought  to  win ;  he  fought  arud 
won.  His  was  no  half-hearted  battle;  but  he 
bared  the  blade  to  smite  with  all  the  strength 
that  slumbered  in  his  arm.  What  Tennyson 
sings  of  Wellington,  might  well  be  sung  of 
Cromwell.  He  knew  no  defeat.  His  name  is 
a  synonym  of  victory.  As  a  general,  he  is  a 
pride  to  England,  a  glory  to  the  world. 

Cromwell  as  orator!  This  seems  a  touch 
of  irony,  or  at  best  of  acid  humor.  But  he  was 
orator.  He  had  no  art  of  Burke  or  Fox.  He 
was  no  Chatham,  no  Pitt.  He  had  no  grace  of 
person,  nor  fascination  of  speech.  But  men 
heard  him.  He  spoke  only  when  his  heart 
was  full.  He  resorted  to  speech  solely  when 
his  silence  oppressed  him  like  a  nightmare. 
It  was  the  thought  he  wished  expressed  that 
drove  him  to  speech.  His  periods  were  not 
those  of  Edward  Everett.  There  was  turgidity 
of  style  which  hints  of  striving  to  put  much 
thought  within  the  limits  of  contracted  utter- 
ance. He  was  warrior  even  in  his  orations. 
His  vocabulary  is  Anglo-Saxon.  It  is  often 
forceful  as  a  battle  charge.  He  did  not  know 
circumlocution.  In  speech,  as  in  battle,  he 
drove  at  the  center.  The  shortest  method  to 
express  the  thought  was  the  line  of  advance. 


King  Cromwell  37 

Some  of  his  battle  bulletins  seem  to  me  as  ex- 
pressive as  words  coukl  make  them.  I  think 
no  man  could  hear  Cromwell  speak  and  be  un- 
certain as  to  his  meaning.  His  metaphors  are 
mixed,  his  sentences  ill-balanced;  but  ambi- 
guity was  not  among  his  literary  faults.  There 
is,  in  his  addresses  as  handed  down  to  us, 
something  so  stalwart,  rugged,  soldier-like, 
that  I,  for  one,  can  not  escape  their  charm.  I 
am  well  aware  to  speak  of  Cromwell  as  orator 
is  new,  but  venture  to  hope  there  is  more  than 
audacity  in  the  claim. 

Cromwell  was  a  statesman.  This  is  high 
honor  to  claim  for  any  man.  Statesmanship  is 
the  ability  to  discover  the  trend  of  events,  and 
to  shape  the  course  of  national  affairs  in  har- 
mony therewith.  Politicians  are  many,  states- 
men few.  They  do  not  often  arise.  Alark  the 
procession  of  legislators  and  premiers  of  any 
nation.  Note  them  with  care.  See  them  with 
vision  unobscured  by  the  mists  of  contem- 
poraneous praise  and  blame;  and  the  conclu- 
sion will  be  forced  upon  us,  however  unsavory 
it  may  prove,  that  the  statesmen  in  any  na- 
tion's life  are  lamentably  few.  Soldier,  Crom- 
well was.  The  justice  of  this  appellation  no 
one  denies;  but  the  qualities  of  generalship  and 


38  K.ing  Cromwell 

statesmanship  are  not  often  co-existent.  A 
man  may  be  able  to  mass  battalions  and  exe- 
cute maneuvers,  and  be  wholly  incapable  of 
mastering  even  the  rudiments  of  statecraft.  Il- 
lustrations of  the  cruth  of  ihis  statement  mul- 
tiply in  our  thought.  That  Wellington,  as  a 
general,  was  great,  let  Waterloo  declare;  but 
that  as  a  statesman  he  was  below  mediocrity, 
his  premiership  attests.  To  the  rule  as  enun- 
ciated there  are  noticeable  exceptions;  but  all 
such  imply  a  plethora  of  genius.  If  Crom- 
well was  statesman  as  well  as  general,  mani- 
festly he  belongs  to  that  illustrious  minority 
who  are  to  be  ranked  as  men  of  superlative 
powers. 

It  is  common  to  say  he  was  no  statesman. 
Eminent  authorities  are  sponsors  for  this 
statement.  But  if  statesmanship  implies  far- 
sighted  discernment  and  ability  to  achieve  suc- 
cess, surely  he  was  a  statesman.  Cromwell 
believed  in,  and  unflinchingly  advocated,  relig- 
ious toleration.  In  this  the  man  was  a  century 
and  more  in  advance  of  his  times.  He  brought 
about  the  union  of  England,  Ireland,  and  Scot- 
land. He  befriended  the  American  Colonies — • 
a  thing  no  other  English  king  had  done.  He 
disfranchised  rotten  boroughs — a  task  requir- 


King  Cromwell  39 

ing  for  its  accomplishment  the  advocacy  and 
diplomacy  of  leading  statesmen  of  our  cen- 
tury. He  created  the  English  navy.  He  at- 
tempted to  reform  the  criminal  law.  He  so 
championed  the  cause  of  Protestantism  that 
he  brought  the  Duke  of  Savoy  to  a  humiliating 
cessation  from  persecution.  His  call  assem- 
bled the  much  ridiculed  "Barebones  Parlia- 
ment," concerning  which  it  is  only  just  to 
make  two  remarks:  It  was  in  a  high  sense  a 
representative  body;  and  did  in  its  enactments 
forecast  many  of  the  most  important  acts  of 
subsequent  English  legislation.  Cromwell  at- 
tempted a  reform  of  the  Court  of  Chancery, 
and  succeeded  beyond  belief.  He  it  was  who 
patronized  learned  institutions,  and  first  in- 
sisted that  young  men  should  be  trained  for 
the  public  service  in  the  universities. 

These  particularizations  will  suffice  to  jus- 
tify the  assertion,  "Cromwell  was  a  statesman." 
Many  a  man  has  been  ranked  with  statesmen 
who  accomplished  not  a  tithe  as  much  as  he. 
His  acts  bear  the  insignia  of  statesmanship. 
True  it  is  that  many  of  Cromwell's  ventures 
were  not  successful.  His  navies  came  back 
defeated;  his  hopes  were  unfulfilled.  But  in 
his  vast  schemes  it  was  as  in  a  battle  with  long 


40  K.ing  Cromwell 

battle  front.  In  some  places  the  forces  are 
driven  back,  in  others  they  charge  victori- 
ously onward;  and  the  army  as  a  whole  ad- 
vances with  victory  burning  on  its  banners. 
Cromwell's  plans,  in  part  frustrated,  in  part 
successful,  did  in  their  entirety  end  in  suc- 
cess. When  his  position  is  considered,  and  the 
odds  against  which  he  waged  a  sleepless  war 
are  numbered,  it  is  not  extravagant  to  affirm 
that  no  English-born  king  has  shown  himself 
so  astute  a  statesman  as  the  Puritan  general, 
Oliver  Cromwell. 

But  far  above  the  what  a  man  achieves  is 
the  what  he  is.  Manhood  is  nobler  than 
genius.  No  achievement,  however  brilliant, 
can  compensate  for  the  lack  of  manliness.  The 
what  I  am  is  the  superior  of  what  I  do.  Puri- 
tanism emphasized  the  dignity  of  man.  Such 
character  as  that  movement  produced,  Eng- 
land had  not  seen  for  centuries.  It  has  too 
frequently  been  the  case  that  great  intellectual 
power  has  been  characterized  by  correspond- 
ingly great  turpitude.  Genius  gives  license 
for  lust.  With  Cromwell  it  was  not  so.  He 
was  pure.  His  life  was  clean.  Henry  VIII 
was  a  libertine;  Charles  I,  a  liar;  Charles  II, 
a    second    Domitian     for    lascivious    revels. 


King  Cromwell  41 

Cromwell,  in  striking  antithesis,  was  true  to 
home.  lie  honored  his  mother.  lie  loved  his 
wife.  Their  relations  were  the  tenderest.  lie 
loved  his  children.  Ilis  son,  slain  in  battle, 
was  never  absent  from  his  father's  loving 
thought.  His  daughter  dying,  the  great  heart 
of  the  soldier  broke.  About  the  man  was  a 
noble  dignity.  He  had  no  little  lordliness,  no 
assumed  superiority  which  marks  the  over- 
elevation  of  a  little  soul.  He  rose  not  above 
his  place,  but  to  it.  He  possessed  the  dignified 
demeanor  of  a  man  "to  the  manner  born."  His 
comportment  was  such  as  brought  no  discredit 
to  the  great  nation  whose  head  he  was.  With 
him,  Whitehall  was  the  court  of  a  Christian 
king.  \\'ith  his  successor,  it  was  a  home  of 
royal  prostitution.  Could  contrast  be  more 
marked?  As  a  man,  simple,  humble,  not  in- 
toxicated by  his  supreme  elevation,  but  brave, 
pure,  tender — he  held  to  God  as  his  soul's  Sov- 
ereign. The  man  Cromwell  is  of  colossal 
mold,  fit  companion  for  Cromwell  orator,  sol- 
dier, statesman. 

We  judge  men  by  what  they  achieve.  Their 
works  do  magnify  them.  The  poet's  poem  is 
his  exaltation,  and  the  painter  becomes  a 
name  because  his  canvas  glows  with  hues  and 


42  King  Cromwell 

forms  of  imperishable  loveliness.  This  man 
should  be  judged  by  like  standard.  He  was 
general  and  ruler.  He  was  great  at  home  and 
abroad.  He  commanded  the  admiration  of 
contemporaries.  He  made  his  government  to 
be  respected,  feared.  He  gave  England  im- 
perishable renown.  Assuredly,  if  this  man  be 
judged  by  what  he  did  achieve,  he  must  be 
ranked,  as  says  Goldwin  Smith,  "among  the 
chiefest  of  the  sons  of  men." 

Cromwell,  the  great  Protector,  lies  dying. 
A  storm,  fierce,  wild,  terrible,  rages.  The  gen- 
eral has  come  into  his  last  battle.  He  will 
gird  on  sword  no  more.  This  is  his  last 
charge.  It  is  September  3d,  anniversary  of 
victory  at  Dunbar  and  Worcester,  From 
those  conflicts  he  came  forth  unscathed.  From 
this  he  will  be  carried  to  his  grave.  He  prays. 
England  prays.  The  storm  exalts  itself  like  a 
triumphant  troop.  Illustrious  hour  in  which 
a  great  soul  may  pass  "to  where,  beyond  these 
voices,  there  is  peace."  The  battle  is  ended. 
The  hitherto  invulnerable  chief  is  slain.  Crom- 
well lies  dead. 

In  Westminster  Abbey  there  is  a  place  for 
Mary,  who  lost  Calais,  and  stained  her  hands 
with  martyr's  blood;  but  for  Oliver  Cromwell, 


King  Cromwell  43 

no  place.  He  sounded  his  guns  on  every 
shore.  He  lost  no  principality.  He  shed  no 
martyr's  blood.  He  championed  freedom  of 
conscience.  He  compelled  respect  for  Anglo- 
Saxondom.  He  made  England  illustrious  as 
the  dawn.  But  for  him  is  no  place  in  the  mau- 
soleum where  English  honor  sleeps. 

In  Westminster  Abbey  there  is  .1  place  for 
Charles  H,  who  made  the  English  court  a 
brothel,  who  sold  Dunkirk  to  England's  most 
inveterate  foe  for  money  to  squander  on  har- 
lots— for  him  a  place  in  Westminster!  But  for 
him  who  protected  the  lowliest  citizen  against 
the  world,  who  made  the  Pope  to  do  his  bid- 
ding, who  won  Dunkirk  with  his  soldier's 
hand — for  Oliver  Cromwell,  there  is  no  place 
in  Westminster  Abbey.  Yet  let  this  stand  as 
an  illustrious  propriety.  No  cathedral  shall 
hold  him.  He  belongs  to  all  the  world.  His 
fame  is  the  common  inheritance  of  the  race. 


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